A typical such closure comprises a slide fastener consisting of two textile support tapes carrying rows of interleavable coupling members that can be joined by a slider. The tapes are adhered to the patient's skin to either side of the wound or incision with the slider down and the teeth not coupled, then the slider is drawn up to pull the lips of the wound together. Thus this closure is not intended to cover the wound, but instead serves to pull the sides of the injury together so that they can knit and heal. Although it is used most easily on a straight surgical incision, it can also be applied to S-shaped or curved wounds, lacerations, contused wounds, and the like.
Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,546 of H Kaessmann. In it the slide fastener is a conventional flexible fastener of the kind used for textile garments, insofar as concerns the rows of coupling members and the support tapes which are of low elasticity and the rows of coupling members which consist of polyester or polyamide and are resistant to compression in the closed state. Spacer strips which form a wound-space zone are disposed on the support tapes at a spacing from the rows of coupling members, on the under side facing the wound. The adhesive connection is made by adhesive strips connected to the support tapes and projecting therefrom. These strips have a skin-compatible adhesive coating on the skin side. The support tapes are backed by the adhesive strip over at least part of their width. The adhesive strips including the projections have a width suitable for taking the transverse tensile forces in the case of the wound being closed by the slide fastener and having abutting wound edges, i.e. the wound edges are pressed against one another. The known device has proved satisfactory and meets all requirements medically, but in terms of manufacture it is expensive, a feature which is particularly disturbing inasmuch as these devices are mass-production products.